Workwise Overwhelmed

I...am overwhelmed. I am often overwhelmed, and in such ciccumstances tend to stop responding via speech. Right now it's work that is overwhelming me with responsibility and very important, complicated tasks, but it's happened before that personal events have overwhelmed me, to the extent that I don't know how to respond, can't provide worthwhile support, and am a pretty much useless person. And so as an alternative to actually dealing with the problem, I tend to start making lists of all the things that I know I have to do, or I think about food, or I check email. I don't know whether I'm just not equipped to deal with difficult things, or if I am just dumb. Either way, it's frustrating, and painful because I let others down.

My engineering mind tries to go into "solution" mode, and I begin to look for ways to fix things. Often times the truth is that there is no fix, or better yet, that one has to work harder to find the brightness inside of a problem. When a problem is not mechanical, I have to find another way to get through it, and that's where I struggle.

I'm not looking for anyone to tell me what's right, in fact I know that I need to find the answer for myself, but it's difficult to find that answer when the full functionality of my brain is generally dedicated to finding the solution to said engineering problems, or worrying about the costs of things, or something else that, really, in life, just shouldn't matter as much as I let it.

...and on things go...